


escape velocity

by Anonymous



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:48:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the shuttle, it hadn’t ended with speculations on the pilot’s sobriety. That would have been too easy. No, from there the kid had spitballed into impassioned speeches on gamma radiation, infectious alien diseases, and what would happen if the heat shields failed.</p><p>(Starfleet Cadets AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	escape velocity

Joan finds herself seated next to only person on the shuttle not in cadet red, some British kid who won’t stop talking about their imminent death in a shuttle crash.

“You see, I can’t stop thinking about the possibilities for everything to go wrong.” He leans over towards her, the smell of alcohol wafting towards her and the whites of his eyes bloodshot. “See the pilot? I think she’s been drinking.”

So have you, she thinks. But instead of ignoring him as some prophetic instinct of self-preservation dictates, she responds in her most reassuring voice, honed by years of practice. “I think these things are pretty safe.”

 

-

 

All through orientation, registering for classes, receiving housing assignments, and the hundred other tiny things associated with settling in as Starfleet Academy cadets, Joan has had a very persistent and obnoxious shadow.

On the shuttle, it hadn’t ended with speculations on the pilot’s sobriety. That would have been too easy. No, from there the kid had spitballed into impassioned speeches on gamma radiation, infectious alien diseases, and what would happen if the heat shields failed.

“Our eyeballs would melt in their sockets.”

It’s been five minutes, and the hour-long shuttle flight is beginning to resemble some kind of Herculean labor.

Despite her trained comfort in all the ways bodily fluids can end up outside the human body, the recitation of the gruesome ways to die in space is beginning to wear on her. So she does a very stupid thing, and asks the kid a question. (Sherlock, he had introduced himself. Weird sense of humor.) This despite Joan’s nagging feeling that Sherlock is the sort of person who latches on like a limpet if you show the slightest interest. It’s something about his eyes. He looks like a baby deer.

“If space terrifies you so much, why are you joining Starfleet? Space is kind of a job requirement.”

That shut’s him up, if only for a moment. He pauses to consider and then says, purposely casual, “My father thinks I am destined to failure, especially in such a difficult pursuit as Starfleet Academy. I wish to spite him, as well as get as far away from the man’s sordid presence as possible.”

 _Sordid?_ Who is this kid?

-

 

They disembark from the shuttle into a gorgeous San Franciscan day, and in the brisk bureaucratic shuffle that follows, Joan both loses sight of Sherlock and learns that that is, indeed, his real name.

She’s happy to part from him. Somehow during the flight he had seen more about her than she would have ever cared to reveal.

“No question why you’ve decided to join the venerable ranks of interstellar babysitters. The way you got on the shuttle, not looking at anyone, the purposeful stride. You’re atoning for something.” He says this last in a arch tone that she finds impossible to interpret.

Joan had blustered through an asinine protest about joining Starfleet to make a difference. Sherlock had given her a far too patronizing a look for someone reeking of last night’s liquor and a good decade younger than her for good measure.

He’d been right, although she hadn’t ever thought to describe it as such and hearing that word – atonement – makes something tight lodge behind her throat. Joan had always been honest about what she was doing: escape, so far and so fast, desperate, as if even light years would be enough.

She’d comforted herself that would be all right, as long as she could continue to do good and never again touch a scalpel. Her intelligence lent itself to research just as well as it had to suturing wounds. Joan had felt the fiction crumble under Sherlock’s unnerving gaze.

She wishes him well, and promptly puts him out of her mind for the evening. Her roommate is a beautiful and regal blonde who introduces herself as Anna Hudson, communications, and veers directly into a conversation of how they can enliven the utilitarian décor of their boxlike dorm room. She doesn’t ask why Joan joined Starfleet, and neither does anyone else at the arrival cocktail they attend that evening. She hears other, younger, cadet’s inquiries and responses, a catalogue of over-achievers and child prodigies. Joan knows she isn’t asked because they figure anyone over 25 who wants to leave everything known that far behind has no happy reason to give.

 

-

 

At breakfast in the cafeteria she ends up sitting with a friendly, handsome guy who gives his name as Marcus Bell, command track. While absorbed in a laughing conversation about their uniforms, they’re interrupted by the thwack of a tray hitting the table. They look up in unison to see Sherlock Holmes making himself comfortable, with nothing on his tray but a larger than standard issue bowl of eggs. He looks disgustingly content for 7 am.

“What do you want?” Marcus asks beside her, with a vehemence that startles Joan.

Sherlock seems unfazed. “You are well aware on what I want. Tell me your given name. And you, Dr. Watson, do not volunteer the answer. It should come from Mr. Bell.”

“Fuck off,” Marcus says with the resigned weariness one reserves for a misbehaving child, rather than any true heat.

“You two know each other?” She tells herself not to ask, but something about Sherlock makes questions issue forth, without her having any say in the matter.

“Yeah, he’s my roommate. And he kept me up till three in the goddamned morning giving me a list of 638 ways Star Fleet regulations could be modified for increased efficiency. Or any efficiency at all because, according to him, Star Fleet is run by a bunch of ‘outdated doddering relics holding on to a primitive past.”

Sherlock doesn’t dignify this with a response, but turns to Joan instead and says “Dr. Watson, I am need of your medical expertise. It appears, regrettably, our first night as cadets was marred by murder.”

“You mean that professor?” Marcus interjects. “That was a suicide. Or accidental overdose, or something."

“I” Sherlock intones gravely, “have reason to believe that this is not the case.”

The kid is obviously deluded. “I have class.” Joan says goodbye to Marcus hurriedly and exits, walking briskly to Introduction to Basic Starship Maintenance, which starts at 8:30.

 

-

 

It should come as no surprise when Sherlock Holmes is in Introduction to Basic Starship Maintenance, and chooses the seat next to her, despite the echoing emptiness of the auditorium. “Required of all first year cadets. Ridiculous.”

Joan sighs.


End file.
